Billy Joel - Piano Man

"Piano Man" was Billy Joel's first major hit and is considered Joel's signature song.
When originally issued as a single, the song was deemed too long by record executives
(5 minutes and 38 seconds), so two verses were cut in half and spliced together for the release as a 45.

"Piano Man" is a fictionalized retelling of real people Joel met during his days as a piano-lounge singer in Los Angeles, after the failure of his first album, Cold Spring Harbor.
Joel's own personal feelings about this failure are expressed in the failed dreams of the characters in his song. At the time, Joel was trying to get out of a bad deal with the record company Family Productions, so, according to Joel, he was "hiding out" at the bar, performing under the name Bill Martin while Columbia Records tried to get him out of the deal.

With Heavy airplay on London's Capital Radio it still failed to chart. This is the full version.